


Fly Away

by Nokomis



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:30:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/309808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nokomis/pseuds/Nokomis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steph sneaks back to Gotham and meets Red Hood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fly Away

**Author's Note:**

> Set during a hand-wavy-on-canon time when Steph was ‘dead’ and Jason was Red Hood. Pretend it fits in the timeline.

Stephanie really shouldn’t be back in Gotham. She’d only been… well, dead, she’s only been _dead_ a matter of months, and she’s used to the sunlit-brightness of Africa enough that she’s seeing Gotham with fresh eyes for the first time ever. But she had snuck in with a group of missionaries returning to the States anyway, a note left with Leslie saying she was going to Cairo to see the pyramids with a friend, and here she was.

She understood the derision outsiders point towards her city now; before it had just been _home_ and now she can see how run-down and dark and dismal the city is when you’re used to brightness and beauty. She understood, but she doesn’t feel it herself.

For the first time since she’d been taken away, she felt like she was herself fully. The Steph she knew she was inside, who had fight and a voice of her own and was comfortable in her skin, who would smash faces to ensure that a little bit of justice was _felt_ in this city.

She couldn’t go on the rooftops. She wasn’t going to risk bumping into Batman or, worse, Tim, and letting them find out that she’d done the impossible and tricked them in the cruelest way possible. So she stuck to the streets and alleys, and wandered her city just to remember who Stephanie Brown was.

The incident in Africa was still fresh in her mind, her trying to save that village, and she knew that eventually she would come back. Not now, she wasn’t ready, but she just needed to fill her lungs with Gotham’s putrid air and pretend for a few minutes that nothing had changed.

Gotham was Gotham, though, and before she’d tired herself out wandering the streets she heard the tell-tale sounds of a tussle coming from an alley.

She really shouldn’t get involved. Batman and Robin patrolled these streets and she wasn’t needed.

There was a sound of pain, though, something guttural and animalistic, and she couldn’t stop herself from walking towards it. She pulled the hood of her eggplant hoodie up over her hair so that she was less noticeable, and peered around the corner in the way Cass had taught her, so she wouldn’t cast a shadow.

Some goofball with a red Lego-looking head was beating the living shit out of what looked like a typical weasely pimp, but Steph noticed between kicks that the pimp was wearing stuff that was actually high-quality instead of knockoffs.

She didn’t leap in like she wanted, like Spoiler would have done, because she didn’t know what the fuck was happening. Gotham changed like the weather, and she didn’t have the first clue what season it was. Instead she observed (like Robin) and tried to suss out the lay of the land.

The pimp was scum, that much was for sure, but she wasn’t sure about the fucktard in the red helmet yet. He was working the pimp over pretty good – more than Batman would approve of, but just about on par with what Steph herself thought was ‘just a lesson’ territory – and didn’t seem inclined to involve the law.

She was pretty sure she should just go and call the police like a good little citizen, but then she realized that she _recognized_ the punches that the dude was now pummeling the pimp with.

She was pretty sure that Batman didn’t go around teaching his fourth-favorite undercut to random masks. She watched closer, edging dangerously close to being visible in order to observe the lines of his stance, weight distribution, tension turned to violence. There were other methods, yes, but underneath it all ran the undercurrent of Bat, the mark of having spent time training with Batman or one of…

No. She couldn’t have run someone that closely associated with the one group of people in the entire city she wanted to avoid, not after just a few hours of immersion in Gotham. She wasn’t that…

She definitely _was_ that unlucky.

No doubt about it, because she could see from the sudden change in the dude’s posture that she’d edged out of safely invisible into completely and utterly screwed.

“Girlie, you should get your ass home,” he said menacingly. The pimp was unconscious.

There was no use lurking in the shadows when she’d been spotted. She took a step into the alley, automatically locating all the fire escapes and various doorways and shadows she  
could use to her advantage.

Once Gotham got you, she never really let go.

“And you should watch yours,” she replied. “You got permission to be beating the shit out of scum?”

The helmet stared blankly at her. It was a really fucking stupid costume design.

“You can’t just raise an eyebrow or frown or whatever the hell you just did inside your bucket there,” she pointed out, hands on her hips just so she looked more authoritative.

This time he laughed and pulled off the helmet, balancing it against his hip as he smirked at her. “Want to admire the whole package?”

“Not that impressive from where I’m standing,” she replied, “but it is chilly out.”

“What, you think you’re tough because you’ve got a mouth on you?” he said, grinning sharply at her. “Think again.”

“No, I think I’m tough because I am, shithead,” she said. He was wearing a domino mask and she had a sinking feeling she knew who he was, and knew just how she could find out. “You worked that dude over pretty good. Might as well have took a crowbar to him.”

He was good, she had to hand it to him, but he wasn’t good enough to completely hide his reaction. She might as well have called him Jason, because the way his shoulders jerked in shock and face took on a distinctively violent expression were as good as a picture ID to someone who had also worn the Robin suit.

He took as step forward and she stood her ground, glaring up from under her purple hood and moving so that her weight was distributed evenly, prepared for attack.

Then he paused and said, “You aren’t just some kid wandering the streets, are you?”

“That’s all any of us are,” she replied.

She didn’t mean to, she knew how she’d made him, but her arms automatically fell into position at the ready, just like Batman had taught her. Just like Jason Todd currently was doing ten feet in front of her.

His eyes widened; she was skilled enough still in reading the expressions hidden by those domino masks to see it.

“You’re dead, sister,” he said.

“Last I checked so were you,” she replied. “So let’s call it even.”

The smirk apparently didn’t leave his face. It just sometimes transformed into a sharp grin or a snarl. “Even? I don’t think so, babe.”

She took a step forward. “What, you wanna compare scars?”

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he replied, leering.

She pushed her hood down and rolled her eyes. “Were you the one who set the low standard for Robin quips? Because, honey, that was weak.”

“Nah, but I did my best to lower the bar straight into the gutter,” he said, leaning up against a wall and looking deceptively casual. Steph knew better.

“Looks like you never left it,” she replied. She spared the beaten pimp a glance, but he didn’t seem to be in any real danger and really hadn’t gotten anything he hadn’t earned.

“Why’d he let you wear the colors?” Jason asked, head tilted back to lean against the brick wall. It revealed his neck, the sharp line of his adam’s apple, but he looked anything but submissive.

“You aren’t gonna pitch a bitch fit? I kind of thought you’d be the type for it,” she said. She didn’t ask about him not being dead. She didn’t want to know.

They probably didn’t even miss her, now that the favored son had returned from the grave. She’d just been a glitch in the line of succession. He’d been an actual part of it.

She’d always thought his case, with its curt memorial, had been an even creepier facet of the Cave than the shadows and the screeching of the bats.

She was moving closer almost unconsciously, drawn to him because of all the things she could say that he would likely _understand_ , and she was close enough to see how his tongue pressed against the back of his teeth.

He didn’t seem the type to be at a loss for words, and after a moment she remembered Batman, voice echoing in the strange silence that the Cave always seemed immersed in, telling her to let nervous-seeming subjects talk themselves into a corner, revealing what you wanted to know without having to ask.

So she didn’t continue asking him questions, instead just moved right up in his space – stupid of her, she wasn’t anything near one hundred percent, and she was pretty sure she hadn’t been a threat to him when she was at the top of her game – and said, “Which side of the line are you these days?”

The dead Robin had been used as a cautionary tale for her, and she could see exactly how dangerous he was and how dangerous he _thought_ he was.

“I’ve never liked lines,” he replied. “Besides, little miss, that stunt you pulled racked up a better body count than I could manage.”

“Fuck you,” she replied hotly.

“They don’t even remember you,” he added.

Steph could pretend like that didn’t bother her, but she wasn’t a fucking robot like Tim. “Yeah? You know what they always told me about you?”

“Nothing good, I’m sure,” he said confidently.

“They told me that Batman was making a mistake letting me wear a mask,” she said. “The same mistake he made when he let you be Robin.”

“I wasn’t a mistake,” Jason said. “They just fucking lied to you.”

His fists were clenched and one foot propped against the wall was supporting his weight in a way that made him loom over her. She didn’t budge.

“Kids like us, we aren’t heroes,” Jason said, filling the tense stillness between them with harsh words. “Not the way they want us to be. I reckon you’ve figured that out.”

“I’ve figured out that kids like us are who we make ourselves,” Steph replied. “And if they don’t let us in, then we keep banging on the goddamn door until they have to at least talk to us.”

He was really fucking close, and if she’d been the one with her back to the wall she probably would have felt trapped enough to shove at him to get away. Instead, she was the one with her back to the empty alley, and she held the power.

Jason shook his head and said, “You’re a lot more fucking optimistic than a dead girl should be.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but then Jason leaned forward and kissed her, waiting to move one of his hands to press against her head until she was distracted enough by his mouth on hers to not strike him nearly as hard as she would have otherwise.

One hand tingled slightly from hitting him in his Kevlar-enforced jacket and she opened her palm and rested it against his arm instead of striking again, clenching somewhat futilely at the leather as the kiss deepened.

He wasn’t timid like Tim, his other hand curving around her hip and then down, squeezing her ass before she’d even come up for air.

“I’m not fucking you, dead boy,” she said when the kiss broke.

“You want to,” he replied confidently.

“I’m not that desperate,” she said, even if she totally kind of was.

His hand migrated off her ass and to the waistband of her jeans. “Wanna bet?”

“How’d they react when you came back?” she asked, and grabbed his wrist in hers. “And I don’t know where those gloves have been.”

“You should worry more about the hands,” he replied. “And badly.”

“I figured as much,” she said. “They don’t like being reminded of their mistakes.”

“And you?” he asked. He didn’t pull away from her grasp.

“I’m used to mistakes,” she said.

“Batman must’ve picked you for your looks, then,” he said, flicking at her hair with his free hand. She responded by pinching his wrist hard, a childish but rewarding move.

“He clearly didn’t pick _you_ for your brains,” Steph replied.

“You never know,” Jason said suggestively, pushing a little closer.

“Like I said,” Steph replied, giving him a smirk of her own.

“You’ve got the right attitude, at least,” he said. “So you gonna tell me why the caped crusaders all think you’re moldering in a grave somewhere?”

“You gonna tell me why you _aren’t_ moldering in a grave somewhere?” she shot back.

He smiled wide, revealing teeth. “Point to Blondie.”

“Fuck you, too,” she replied. They were in the center of the alley, which wasn’t to her advantage. Not to her disadvantage, either. She wanted to ask him a million questions and she wanted desperately for him to not mention anything about her to Batman or Robin.

Cass was gone from Gotham; the fact that she wouldn’t be able to find out Steph was alive from this asshole’s swagger was the only beacon of light from that clusterfuck. Gotham had really gone to hell in handbasket since her premature demise.

It was cruel, what she was doing to Tim, but she figured that her loss wasn’t really significant compared to everything else.

Jason was still eyeing her up in a way that made her uncomfortably certain that if this were any other situation, if they were in any other place in their lives, that she wouldn’t have stopped him after just a kiss.

She had to say something. “They needed us.”

“Clearly they don’t,” Jason said. There it was, his weakness. His voice was brittle like old bones, and he didn’t even try to hide the bitterness.

“Of course they do,” she said. “Look around. This is what happens when they don’t have people who’ve lived Gotham. Who know desperation and being trapped.”

“You aren’t going to play the ‘my childhood sucked worse than yours’ card are you?” he said, sneering.

“That was weak,” she replied, sticking her tongue out. “And no. I’m just saying, we know how to smile despite all the shit because we know it’ll never really _change_ , not in  
the ways they dream it will. We know that the best we can do is make it as bearable as possible. They lose sight of that.”

“We do, huh,” Jason replied. Stephanie realized that she’d never released his hand, that they were standing there in the alleyway, holding hands and staring at each other. Like lovers, she thought. Lovers who didn’t want to leave each other, who wanted to confess things, but couldn’t.

“They need us,” she repeated, “just not as much as we need them.”

Jason let go of her hand, took the step back that broke whatever it was between them that had made Steph say out loud things she only herself believed alone in the dark of the night.

“I won’t tell them I saw you,” he said. “Since you want to disappear so badly you’d let him think he killed another Robin.”

“I don’t want to,” she said. “But this is just what I have to do right now.”

“Fly away, Blondie,” he said. “Since the big bad city’s too much for you.”

He had a knife in his hand and was staring down at the pimp Steph had forgotten about, still unconscious and breathing irregularly on the wet pavement.

“Maybe I’m not the only one who needs some distance,” she said, staring at him. “Don’t play the villain just because you think it makes you tougher than them.”

“Who’s playing?” he asked, and only the pangs in Steph’s side reminding her that she was still knitting back together after Black Mask’s all too professional torture made her turn from him, turn from the pimp and return to the Gotham street, walking under dead streetlamps and trying to pretend like she didn’t want to turn back into that alley.

She understood the warnings Babs had launched her way about him now. Why they’d felt compelled to warn her about the dangers of fighting on the razor’s edge.

She understood, because she was more interested in seeing what Jason was doing with that knife than about the safety of the crook. She wanted to see what she could have been in another life, what she still could be if she didn’t watch out.

She had to get back to Africa, because she wasn’t ready yet for Gotham.

She was too weak. She might make the wrong choice.


End file.
